Unionist leaders seem unable to recognise a favour when you give them one. Take the recent appointment of Mr Robert Collins to the Equality Commission, for example. Unionist leaders have been complaining bitterly about it.
Some of them may even use the shelter of the British 'Ouse of Common Folk to attack the appointment.
How strange all this is. True, Mr Collins was Director General of the Irish state broadcasting service, RTÉ, and that seems to be the unionists' difficulty. And yet during his time as DG, Mr Collins could hardly have been nicer to the unionists. They were treated with great courtesy, their views were given very special attention and respect, they were allowed to state their case without interruptions. And even when they were off the air and their opponents were on it, the unionists' views were presented to nationalists and republicans for them to answer. At times Northern Catholics were confronted if their views seemed to cast doubt on the unionists' good intentions or actions.
So one could hardly fault Mr Collins on the grounds that he was unkind to unionists. He could scarcely have been nicer to them.
And if RTÉ policy – within which Mr Collins had to work – encouraged employees to be harsh and critical and at times confrontational to nationalists and republicans, this only emphasised the great courtesy and respect and deference and agreement accorded to the unionists.
Mr Collins presided over an RTÉ which more than fulfilled its duty to treat unionist citizens of Ireland with due courtesy. Republicans and nationalists who complained did not complain about the kindliness with which unionists were treated, they complained about how they saw themselves being treated in contrast.
But all that is water under the bridge now. The appointment of Mr Collins to the Equality Commission, while it was greeted with anger by unionists, was greeted with courtesy by nationalists and republicans.
As with every other appointment in Ireland's north-east, including those of all the secretaries of state, the idea in their minds seems to have been: give everyone a chance.
So can we hope that London will make it possible for Mr Collins to ensure that equality will really prevail in the north-east? Can we hope, in other words, that London's policies really have changed and Mr Collins' duty will be to put them into practice? What an interesting scene this will be. That is, if the unionists do not succeed in getting rid of Mr Collins before he begins, or undermine him when he does begin.
Two lessons we can learn from this – one is that unionist leaders will never be satisfied unless they have total, not just partial, control of events, and the other is that we may have misjudged RTÉ all these years – perhaps they were in favour of equality all the time.
Anyway, we shall watch the future of the Equality Commission and the Human Rights Commission and the Peace and Reconciliation movements and all that with great interest. Maybe not a lot of hope, but interest certainly.
Meanwhile, the saga of unionist religious violence continues. It would be interesting to compare and contrast the different religious festivals in Ireland. Most seem to be conducted with reverence. For instance, does one hear of the May Procession or the Corpus Christi Procession being accompanied by window breaking, obscene cries and street fouling? Of course not. And one understands that the various Jewish festivals and other religious celebrations are conducted with a lot of joy and a minimum of two finger greetings. And the Bah'ai people in Letterkenny are very nice people, exceptionally nice indeed. And while the Jehovahs may come to one's door at inconvenient times perhaps, they do not break the windows when leaving.
No, it seems that for some reason the religious festivals of the unionists have to be accompanied by window-breaking, evictions, curses, fouling, threats, killings and maimings. Strange, when you consider how many clergy there are in their loyal orders and that their loyal orders are led by ministers of religion.
However, let us be glad and rejoice – we are learning from Mr Blair and his companions how lucky and blessed we are not to be living among them Muslim fundamentalists. They are such violent people that we have found that if we cannot convert them to peace by peaceful methods we have to invade them and kill them and thus force them into compliance with decent Christian standards. And they, being violent, answer back in a most savage way.
Ho, as they say, Hum.
